Moscow
by theblueeyedwanderer
Summary: On the run from the KGB, SHIELD, and her past, a young Natalia Romanova is desperate for a way out. A look into her darker days and how a certain archer makes an unlikely decision.
1. Chapter 1

Natalia sprints through the streets and alleyways of Moscow, her red hair streaming behind her, gun in hand. She knows they're after her, knows she should never have stayed here so long. She let her guard down. And now her past has come clawing back up from its grave, determined to drag her down instead.

When she left the KGB two years ago to work alone she knew she would be put on their target list, but since she was operating on her own now she had a limited knowledge of their whereabouts. She'd managed to stay ahead of them for some time, but recently she had been noticing more eyes watching her when they thought she wasn't looking, her jobs sabotaged or harder to complete. They knew.

Natalia ignores the panic and keeps running from the assassin she knows is trailing her with a kill order. If there's one thing she knew about the KGB is that they don't take well to agents leaving, and although she was one of their best agents she ditched them after only a few years. She knows they will not be merciful.

Before she knows it she idiotically runs into a dead end alley. She turns, bracing herself, for her opponent.

Natalia is startled to see the face of a fellow agent she worked with many times. Alek Roske eyes her with something other than hatred—animalistic and predator-like, yes, but with longing. She pushes away the memories of their time together—he loved her but she had never wanted anything to do with him.

"Natalia," he chuckles in Russian. "How long do you think you can keep running?"

"I was doing pretty damn fine on my own," she spits. "I get a lot more money from working alone and I'd like you guys to get off my ass."

"You can't just kill targets the KGB's after and take the money for yourself. They're not happy, Talia."

"Don't call me that."

He puts his hands up in a mocking surrender. "You know who else isn't happy with you? The Americans."

"SHIELD," she states, not a question. She's killed several of their agents who either got in the way or were wanted dead by some of her employers. She also finds it entertaining to botch their missions—stealing weaponry and helping their targets get away is great fun.

He nods. "You're pretty high on their list."

"Aren't you here to kill me?" Natalia asks, annoyed.

"I thought I could convince you to come back."

The thought chills her. She's sick and tired of being manipulated by corrupt organizations. "You know I never would."

"You're right," Alek grins. "Enough with the small talk."

Like lightning, she lunges at him and wrests the gun away, throwing him to the ground. He pulls a knife from nowhere and slashes at her leg, not too deep but enough to be painful. They roll around, two deadly agents locked in a fight to kill.

He beats her up, but she doesn't hesitate. Slowly she tires him out and gains the upper hand. And then she gets ready to do what she's been doing since she was five—kill him. Just as he grabs her hair in his fist and leans in to taunt her yet again, because she's just a weak used girl and he's never failed to remind her of that, she twists his gun back into him and fires. He falls back, frozen, hitting the ground like a rock. She pulls another of her own guns and shoots him again, two more times, until the light flicks off from his eyes and his blood floods the dirt. She takes his ammo and weapons, finds the tracker and earpiece he wears from the KGB and crushes them beneath her heel. Finally, Natalia drags his body into the dark corner of the alley and wipes his blood from her palms.

This is what she was made to do. Right?

She forces herself to look away from Alek. She has to get the hell out of Moscow or the KGB will find her for sure—they will be far angrier with her now for killing one of their top agents.

Natalia walks slowly, casually away from the corpse and out of the alley, already planning out where she will run to now. She can't come back to Moscow, not for a long, long time.

Back in the alleyway, an American man with a bow and arrow crouches on a rooftop in silence.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you very much to those of you who reviewed! A fair warning that I am not an intense comic-book reader, I just like the Marvel cinematic universe. So my detailing of Natasha's past may not be 100% accurate but I'm going with what I know from the movies and some online reading. Thank you! (To the reader that asked: Natasha is about 20 years old in this)**

 **One week earlier: SHIELD headquarters, United States**

Coulson slaps a file folder in front of Clint. "This'll be fun," he tells him. "Take a look."

Clint opens the file and recognizes it immediately. The sketch is lifelike—dark, troubled eyes staring at him intensely, red hair framing a young face he has to admit is beautiful. "The Black Widow."

Coulson nods. "She's been on the run from the KGB for the last few years, and recently we've been having a problem with her as well. She likes to mess with us. She's killed three of our agents and stolen countless intel and weapons."

"So you want me to bring her in?"

"We want you to take her out."

Clint does a double take. "She's…she's one of the most skilled assassins in the world. She could be a tremendous asset, sir, and…Christ, she's young. She can't be more than nineteen or twenty, she's practically a kid." Something about the girl's eyes bothers him—they're so lost and intense, not those of a killer.

"She's a tremendous _risk._ She's _killed_ SHIELD agents, Clint. Does that mean nothing to you?"

He stiffens, thinking of the acquaintance killed in cold blood in Athens by the red-headed assassin. "Of course it does, sir. I'll take her out."

"Good to hear. She's been spotted last in Moscow, where she apparently likes to hang around. She's hard to track but I think you can do it," Coulson says, pulling up a map of Russia and eastern Europe. "Follow her for a few days before you confront her. I know it might seem harsh given her age, but she's a cold-blooded killer and a big danger."

Clint nods again. "Got it."

The next morning, he's on a SHIELD jet to Moscow, bow and arrow in hand. He feels sorry for her—she has no idea she's going to die soon.

 **Current time. Tallinn, Estonia**

Natalia hitches a train to Estonia, hoping the KGB is too revolted by the ex-Soviet country to think of searching for her there. She sits low, hood over her face, trying to draw as little attention as possible. She doesn't think she's being tailed, and every few stops she gets off and switches trains. It takes six hours to get to Tallinn, but it's worth it if she's managed to get there unfollowed.

She gets off the streets quickly and checks into a hostel. She gets a dinged up top-floor room all to herself, where she triple-checks for cameras and bugs before locking the door and going to sleep.

Natalia is exhausted, but the usual nightmares still plague her and she doesn't get more than a few hours' respite. She gets up after a particularly horrible Red Room dream and forces herself to plan out the next week—where she'll go, how she'll throw them off her scent.

This is her life now, the life she knew awaited her when she made the choice to leave the KGB—a life of running, one of constantly looking over her shoulder for death. A life of never trusting anyone because she had hardly known a single person who hadn't manipulated or tried to kill her. If there's one motto she held dear it was that people only do things to get things from other people. Trust was a foreign concept.

Natalia maps out the next few days in her head while she glances out the window, scanning the city. Tallinn is prettier than she expected, but not as nice as Russia. Russia is dark, gloomy, horrible, but through all her past she still holds it dear in her heart, a fierce national pride that makes no sense to her. But her first language is beautiful, and she loves it, and she loves how comfortable she feels in the biggest country in the world.

Something moves in her peripherals, and she glances over in time to see a man on a rooftop diagonal to her. He twists away and is hidden in a second, but she's seen enough—she's been found, already, or maybe he never left. Time to move out quicker than planned.

Natalia leaves without paying, knowing she gave the hostel a fake name and there's no way to track her down. She pulls down her hood and walks quickly, ignoring the looks she gets and glancing over her shoulder every few minutes. It doesn't take long before she sees a man pushing through the crowd with—is that a bow and arrow? What the hell?

She ducks into a dim, busy restaurant and weaves through tables. She breaks into a run when she enters the kitchen, ignoring the yells of the chefs, and goes out the back exit. She scales a brick wall and lands in an alleyway, but searches for another building. She's determined not to be cornered in one again. Maybe Alek would still be alive if she had never made that mistake in the first place. Natalia shakes her head free of the image of him—he was ruthless, yes, but he was always soft on her because he loved her.

From over the wall, she hears more kitchen shouts and the back door. She dives into an empty warehouse and makes for the roof, hoping he didn't see her. Whoever this freaky Robin Hood is, he's good.

Natalia smirks. _But not as good as me._

She loads her guns as she runs, letting him catch up. She's decided she'll wait and kill him, and as soon as she hears him she twists and fires. He swears and ducks behind a pillar, and she can hear him drawing an arrow. Seriously, who the hell uses a bow and arrow?

"This isn't the Dark Ages, you know," she calls out in Russian, amused. "Guns are a little more effective."

He whips around the corner and shoots, and she barely ducks away in time. "I don't speak much Russian, but I'm pretty sure that was an insult."

She halts in surprise. He's American. SHIELD, most likely. Their eyes meet and freeze for a second. Natalia gives him a once-over—he's not the brutal, cruel Russians usually sent. And there's never been a SHIELD agent sent directly to kill her. He almost seems…kind.

"You're with SHIELD," she tells him in English, hating her Russian accent that isn't overpowering but is definitely there. "Come to kill me?"

"Yes, actually," answers the man. His voice is convincing but his eyes hesitate.

"Well, that's not going to happen," Natalia says flatly. "I've evaded the KGB for years and I have no plans to die by a silly American agency."

He studies her. "How old are you, Miss Romanova?"

"There's no need for fancy titles. Natalia. But only my friends call me that."

"Friends. Right," chuckles the man, approaching her. "Because you get a lot of those as a world-class assassin."

Natalia shoots at him before flipping through the air to engage in hand-to-hand combat. That's the most fun, in her opinion, and it really shows the extent of a person's skill. Anyone can fire a gun, but who can kill someone with their bare hands?

She vaults over him and brings him to the ground with her legs. He's surprisingly strong and skilled, and manages to trip her and pin her down. They roll across the cement floor of the old warehouse, drawing knives and stabbing at the other. He grunts and she patiently waits to gain the upper hand as he lands several blows to her abdomen. He grabs her hair and jerks her backwards, into a standing position, breathing heavily and fingering his gun (apparently he's a little less medieval than she thought).

He lets his guard down for a second as he draws his gun, and the Widow strikes. She slashes mercilessly at his side with a jagged knife and he roars, injured enough to loosen his grip. She plants her foot in his chest and kicks him to the ground, lowering her own gun to his temple and narrowing her eyes.

"Goodbye, American."

She wants to stare at his oddly kind eyes for another second before she puts the light out. Mistake. Without warning, a syringe jabs into her side and empties. Natalia stumbles back, instantly dizzied. Will she die? Be knocked out and taken to America to be interrogated? The room swirls and tips, her breathing becoming more rapid. How _stupid_ she is.

She blacks out looking at the strangely kind face of the mysterious archer.


End file.
